Court ar­raigns 4 over forgery and im­per­son­ation

The mag­is­trate court, sit­ting in Wuse Zone 2, has ar­raigned four men on Mon­day over al­leged forgery and im­per­son­ation.

The ac­cused per­sons iden­ti­fied as Og­bon­naya Leo, Robert Okonichukwu, Ti­tus Bo­lar­inwa and Prince Tunde were said to have com­mit­ted an of­fence con­tra­ven­ing sec­tions 97,312,132,364 and 368 of the Pe­nal Code.

The pros­e­cu­tor, Bless­ing Ezeala, told the court that on Novem­ber 19, 2015, the com­mis­sioner of po­lice re­ceived a dis­tress call from one Chinyere Chalete that the ac­cused con­spired and duped her, us­ing fake doc­u­ments.

The pros­e­cu­tor in­formed the court that the com­plainant was awarded a con­tract by the Kaduna State Po­lice Com­mand to sup­ply 12, 000 bags of rice and two 2, 000 lap­tops.

“How­ever, the com­plainant couldn’t ex­e­cute the con­tract be­cause she was not fi­nan­cially buoy­ant at that point in time,” Ezeala said. “Thus, she con­tacted Og­bon­naya who in­di­cated in­ter­est in the con­tract. Og­bon­naya told the com­plainant that he knew some­body who will fi­nance the con­tract. Con­se­quently, the com­plainant handed over the two con­tracts pa­pers to him.

“With the in­ten­tion to cheat, the ac­cused per­sons pre­sented a fake doc­u­ment bear­ing Kul­met In­te­grated Ser­vices Lim­ited to her and told her that the com­pany is owned by the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Stella Maris Col­lege, Abuja. The com­plainant said she was de­ceived by the ac­cused per­sons when she saw the MD’s sig­na­ture on the doc­u­ment, un­known to her that it was forged.”

The pros­e­cu­tor added that the ac­cused per­sons failed to hon­our their own part of the deal af­ter they had ex­torted the com­plainant.

She said that dur­ing po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the ac­cused per­sons con­fessed to the al­leged crime.

When the charges were read to the ac­cused per­sons, they pleaded not guilty. Chief Mag­is­trate Sa­muel Id­hiarhi granted the ac­cused per­sons bail in the sum of N2m each and two sureties in the like sum. The case was ad­journed to Au­gust 8, 2016, for hear­ing.